Android P's AI will simplify your life but it needs even more of your data

One of Android P's new features is the adaptive battery. The system monitors which apps use your battery and tries to make last for longer

WIRED / Google

Google has outlined what we can expect from Android P at I/O 2018, its annual developer conference. As usual, it didn’t unveil the new 2018 Pixel phones at the same time, though.

There are a few little hints about what the new phone hardware may be like. But how Google intends us to use Android P phones in the future is far more interesting.

The Google Assistant AI is pushed to the surface more than ever before. It will make our phones more useful, and likely better at creating an in-depth profile on each of us. Android P guesses what we want to do next, and will even suggest when we might way to lay off YouTube and Facebook, like the drunk at a bar who has had one too many.

Advertisement

What about the phones?

Before we get deep into the features, what does Android P say about the next Pixel phones? There’s nothing definite, but Google says the software’s new one-button soft key is designed for phones with very little space left below the display.

Phone makers have chipped away at the bottom “lip” of mobiles with 18:9 to 19:9 extra-long screens. The new virtual soft key actually leaves more space between itself and the app dock icons, to compensate. The Pixel 3 will almost certainly have an ultra-long screen. Like every other recent high-end phone. No surprises here.

There’s also a much looser suggestion the next Pixel may have dual cameras. This comes courtesy of a much greater augmented reality influence in Android.

You’ll soon be able to see the real-world camera view on Google Maps. It’s used to show visual directions on actual streets, rather than relying on voice prompts and written directions. Google even showed an AR animal disappearing down a street instead of an arrow, signalling where to follow.

This is full-on augmented reality, which requires a fairly detailed depth map of a scene. And that works best either with dual cameras, using the parallax effect to calculate distance, or an infra-red array.

Google has proved it doesn’t need either, though. It has already successfully created AR experiences using a single camera, working out a depth map as the camera is moved, based on the same visual effect a dual camera array monitors when standing still. If Google finds it gets better results with two eyes, it may put a second camera on the Pixel 3’s rear. To date all Pixel phones have had a single main camera. Whichever option Google goes for, the Pixel 3 is likely to be among the best smartphones released this year.

A guided experience

AR Google Maps directions are just one way the next wave of Android updates guide us through the day-to-day smartphone experience. Some others are almost invisible.

Adaptive Auto Brightness learns how you bump your phone’s brightness up and down, effectively creating a new auto brightness curve based on your behaviour. End up lowering brightness indoors even when you're using Auto mode? Android P remaps the auto brightness to take this into account.

Adaptive battery is another invisible new feature. This monitors how you use apps and auto-restricts background processes of those it thinks you have no plans of using. If you only ever use app A in the evening, adaptive battery won’t let it start any background processes in the morning, for example. Google says it reduces “CPU wakeups” by 30 per cent, which could dramatically improve battery life for those who don’t use their phone all that much.

How to (really) stop Google from tracking your location

You can get the Android P Beta now and you don't need a Pixel phone

The nanny state

If adaptive battery is Android P playing caretaker, Wind Down sees it take on the roll of lifestyle coach. Or nanny.

A natural development of the blue light filter many phones have now, Wind Down turns the phone’s apps monochrome at a certain time of night. It’s a reminder: you promised yourself to stop looking at Facebook before bed.

It is optional, of course, but whether many of us use it will make an interesting sociological experiment. A case of will power versus app addiction, is a reminder enough to nudge us back into healthier behaviours?

There’s more, too. Dashboard is another way Google signals it knows many of us have dysfunctional relationships with our phones. Some might call this “digital virtue signalling”, but it will also make mindful phone use much easier to attain.

Dashboard shows you how much time each day you spend in top apps, how many notifications you receive and how many times you unlock your phone. If Android’s long-standing battery monitor screen was useful for diagnosing problems in apps, Dashboard is useful for finding the same sort of problems in our own behavioural patterns.

You can even set time limits for apps, and Google demonstrated this in YouTube, which will soon show you a prompt when it thinks you’ve spend a little too much time watching videos. Google clearly thinks this is an important issue politically, socially or both, as when we watch fewer YouTube videos, Google loses out (if only a little) on revenue.

Android P cuts a deeper slice

This apparent altruism is somewhat offset by another Android P change, App Slices. These let parts of apps populate higher levels of the Android interface, rather than staying inside the app itself. There’s a home for these on the apps drawer. They will sit below the row of suggested apps, present in Android 8.0.

You might see a shortcut to your last-played artist or playlist on Spotify, a shortcut to start a workout on a fitness app or one to call your best friend. They will appear in other areas too. Google showed how a “buy tickets” Fandango link might appear in universal search if you look up a band.

This will make Android P slightly more visually complicated than Android 8.0. But it’s still nothing like Amazon’s Fire OS take on Android, which turns the system into a storefront for Amazon services.

So why did we suggest this offsets the seeming goodwill of Dashboard and Wind Down? It filters more of our behaviour through Assistant-related APIs, making it easier for Google to collect more fine-grain detail about us. This exists in a much lower-key way already. Long press many app icons in Android 8.0 and you’ll see shortcuts to parts of an app, but few people we know use these.

Filtering app navigation through Google’s servers will almost certainly strengthen its advertising platforms, the company’s main source of revenue. The more specific our targeted ads can be, the more valuable our Google ad profiles are.

Advertisement

The best smartphones and Android phones for any budget

Google Assistant gets weird

This is also one reason Google wants us to start treating the Assistant AI like a person rather than a smarter automated phone line. The less we have to consider an assistant’s limitations when making a request, the more likely we are to use it. With each request, we feed Google data.

In the “coming weeks” we’ll be able to make multiple tangentially related Assistant requests in a single sentence. It’s a truly impressive technical feat. And Google will reduce the amount we have to say the jarring “Ok, Google” wake word.

There are some very strange things coming to Assistant, too. Soon you’ll be able to use it to call places like restaurants and hairdressers. You won’t make the call. It will, in the background, after you ask it to make an appointment or booking. This is called Google Duplex.

Google played us some apparently real test calls. One was a simple booking at a hair salon, another a more awkward call with a local restaurant. The proprietor mis-understood a few of the Assistant’s phrases but the AI still managed to come back with cogent replies and successfully concluded the call.

One interesting point: these calls do not appear to use the same voices or techniques as Google Assistant. Instead, they use more naturalistic phrases complete with pauses “umm”s, pauses and what sound more like pre-recorded phrases than fully synthesised voice clips.

The intention is for the call’s receiver not to realise it’s Google calling. This is an uncomfortable, but impressively ambitious, goal. Google Assistant can wrap its tentacles around establishments that don’t have an online booking system, or even a website.

Google will add to the Assistant voice roster, too, letting you choose from six voices. Singer John Legend has even spent time recording voice samples for Assistant, and his smooth tones will be available for certain Assistant responses. It’s an attempt to make Assistant more fun, like custom voices for an in-car GPS unit.

A new layout

Android P is an interesting update. Some parts are quite fascinating. Others may make your feel uncomfortable.

However, it’s the new layout you’ll notice first. A flick up the screen in Android 8.0 brings you to the app drawer. A similar flick here gets you to the recent apps views, now infused with App Slices that try to pre-empt your needs.

A second upward swipe takes you to the app drawer. It will likely seem to complicate Android P, just like the new App Slice parts. However, this is one to judge after living with the new software.

The beta version of Android P is available now, for a surprising number of phones, including the Google Pixel, Google Pixel 2 Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1. Its final release will be outed alongside the next generation of Pixel phones later this year.